Oral care implements, in particular manual toothbrushes, as well as methods for manufacturing the same are well known in the art. Generally, cleaning elements are attached to a toothbrush head intended for insertion into a user's oral cavity. A grip handle which is held by the user during brushing is usually attached to the head via a neck portion extending between the head and the handle.
According to one method for manufacturing toothbrushes known in the art, ends of bristle tufts—which might be optionally fused to form a ball-like structure—are inserted into a mold cavity and a first synthetic component is injection molded around these bristle ends to form a bristle carrier. The bristle carrier is then transferred to a further mold cavity in which the brush body is injection molded around the bristle carrier. This process, however, merely provides low degree of flexibility in terms of combining different shapes of handles with various toothbrush heads as the production process is fixed due to given mold cavities.
In order to enable the production of different types of brushes in a simple manner, a process is known, wherein bundles of bristles are embedded in a bristle carrier by their fastening side ends. The bristle carrier is connected to a brush body wherein an intermediate layer of an additional material component is provided between the bristle carrier and the brush body. The brush body and the bristle carrier may be connected to the additional material component by partial fusing. The part of the brush body to which the bristle carrier is connected has the form of a bowl to receive the intermediate layer and the bristle carrier. However, said method does not allow the combination of various kinds of brush heads/bristle carriers with brush bodies as the shape of the bristle carrier has to fit into the bowl of the brush body. Thus, the flexibility of combining various types of bristle carriers with a given brush body and vice versa is still limited.
It is an object of the present disclosure to provide an oral care implement and a method for manufacturing the same, which allows a high degree of flexibility in terms of combining different types of carriers comprising cleaning elements with various types of handles in a simple and cost saving manner.